The issue concerning ‘WMD’s’ isn’t whether or not Bush was misled by a faulty CIA analysis. The real issue is, when it came time to invade Iraq, whether or not the analysis even mattered. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Wolfowitz (the absence of Powell should be duly noted, and God only knows what Ms. Rice was doing since she obviously wasn’t coordinating between the various departments), have manipulated the “War on Terror” from the very beginning to justify military action against Iraq. After all, while erroneously overstating the presence of a massive and secret program of WMD development, those same CIA analyses consistently stated that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the interests of the United States. Apparently Bush felt comfortable justifying a war with the most questionable part of the CIA analysis while completely ignoring the rest.

Of course the Bush administration’s relentless enthusiasm for the occupation of Iraq, even before 9/11, is well documented, and it is extremely misleading to now suggest that the invasion of Iraq was anything other than pre-ordained. The political manipulation of intelligence condoned by this President (the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon, for one example) is the grossest abuse of executive power since, well, Iran-Contra. Our efforts to confront al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (efforts the U.S. largely abandoned last year, incidentally, despite the continuing threat of Osama bin Laden), were met with an overwhelming degree of support, both domestic and international. That Bush would co-opt those feelings of national unity and world sympathy to service the invasion and occupation of Iraq — a poorly-planned, poorly-debated and ill-informed exercise in neoconservative expansionism — is unforgivable.

In fairness, the decision by Congress to give the President a blank check for the use of military force is also troubling. Such an avoidance of Constitutional responsibility is wrong, and, in that context, a legitimate complaint against Kerry, Edwards, Kennedy, and the other 74 Senators who favored the resolution. At the very least, Congress should have strictly defined and limited the circumstances under which force would be justified (for example, I doubt that Congress, if forced to debate the issue, would have approved Bush’s rush to war while the U.N. inspectors were still completing their work). Of course Senator Rockefeller, ranking Democrat o the Senate Intelligence Committee, came forward this year and spoke candidly about the Senate vote of October 2002 (obviously, he’s not up for re-election this year). While other Senators may not be so publicly forthcoming, it would require a very selective memory indeed to deny the political pressure the executive branch asserted in its efforts to legitimize the war and limit debate.

In summary, this administration is both reckless and arrogant. They deny even the slightest responsibility for their mistakes; they consistently shift blame in every other direction while viciously stifling all forms of dissent. A vote for Bush in November is an endorsement of this despicable behavior, and God help the future of Democracy if a majority of Americans will condone it.